Who Was The Upper Keswick, N.b. Postmaster In 1941

All of the documents I saw only mentioned postcards. Apologies if it appears otherwise in my response.

Value to the censors were not what we consider items of value. What the censor was required to do was review the text written on the post card. They would be looking info such as shipping, weather, sentiment, and other info that the government would see as potentially valuable to the enemy.

The documented procedures made no mention of other valuables they only were concerning postcards.

Chesham85

I have been collecting Canada WW2 for some time now. The PASSED FOR EXPORT and CENSOR markings are two different aspects of war time Canadian philately.

Censorship was control the dissemination of sensitive information. . In very general terms it was applied to all items to and from Canada not to domestic mail inside Canada. It is interesting that in the 1945 Newfoundland had not joined the Confederation and for censorship considerations was treated as a foreign country.

Again in very general the PASSED FOR EXPORT handstamps arose from the Foreign Exchange Currency Control regulations which were a completely separate set of rules designed, as the name suggests, to control the flow of currency out of Canada. These complex regulations were controlled by the Foreign Exchange Control Board.

In simple terms this meant the local postmasters had to check mail going out of Canada to ensure that it complied with the FECB regulations. It was the postmasters that applied the PASSED FOR EXPORT handstamps. They are not connected with censorship. In my original post I had assumed that LC was the postmasters initials as some did have their own handstamps. I had not thought about Letters of Credit. This was the first handstamp I have ever seen which included the LC and the only reference book I have for the FECB does not show any examples I can find.

Both are complex subjects with many facets to collecting them.

Should the topic title be changed to the correct town name, Upper Jemseq/Jemseg?

And I add that there is no need to ask for a PM's name as that assumption was also off base.

Edit to remove extra t.

Ok, so how does this cover fit into the thread?

Different receiving country and different hand stamp.

If I may offer an alternate explanation, the postmaster (by order of the Foreign Exchange Control Board) was required to ensure mailed items met the criteria for export, and initial same, from 1939 to 1951.

Setting aside the AI debate for the moment in favour of old fashioned detective work and surmise:

I think the strike of the handstamp is incomplete. D. L. C.(ameron) was the postmaster at Fredericton NB at this time (from Archives Canada). I expect that, Fredericton being a much larger post office, the PM had a handstamp made and that this is where the letter was cleared. A smaller post office would just handwrite "Passed for Export" and initial it. Note that Frederiction appears to be the origin P.O. anyway, regardless who the sender was or where she/he resided.

Mr. Becker's contribution is helpful to demonstrate the requirement of initials signifying personal responsibility for inspection. Obviously I doubt the Letter of Credit theory. P.S. Please post a full scan of the cover in the future, also backside if there are useful postmarks.

For those who were puzzled, like me, as to how Mr Mendenhall got his letter, Atlanta in Indiana had a population of 479 in 1940.

Also, if you think his name sounds like an airbase, yeah, it does.

I have officially forgotten about AI as far as this topic is concerned and totally accept my initial post was wrong. I have no idea how to change the title of this thread as PARCELPOSTGUY but it seems a good idea.

The PASSED FOR EXPORT handstamps were all sourced locally by the postmasters who wanted to have them . There was no official issue. They vary greatly in size and font. The one posted by John Becker is however typical of the majority, the colour has no significance. I assume that they are in a commonly available font used by whoever made them.

BNAPS has a book about the FECB based on an award winning exhibit
https://bnaps.org/books/bookdetails.php?bookid=187

Based on what I have in my collection have covers with only the postmaster signature are far less common that the ones with handstamps with initials.

I am not sure about the D. L. C.(ameron) theory. There is not much room in the handstamp for a D and in the handstamp did originally say D L Cameron I would have thought more would have been known about it but it is worth looking into more. I will see if I can find anything.

AQ

@Anthraquinone, bottom right of your post is a "send note to staff" button. You could use that to ask if one of the moderators would edit the title of the thread.

First, Anthraquinone, can you post photos of your complete cover?

The single line, "Passed For Export" is common. The two line you showed is far less common.

I add:

Parcelpostguy

The rest of my cover is very straight forward. Coutts was/is a bank so Letter of Credit makes sense but why only from Fredericton.



I do think your posts dispel the idea that there is a D missing from the handstamp. The dates range from 1940 to 41 and I cannot imaging a defective handstamp being used for that long.

This next handstamp is also puzzling. It is on the back of a cover from the Windsor branch of the Bank of Toronto




The handstamp on the back reads FECO Possibly the bank had a Foreign Exchange Control OFFICE - that is the only explanation I can think of I cannot imagine it being a mistake and I do not think a postmaster would have used this. There never was an official body with that name. This is the only example I have seen.

AQ